samedi 23 janvier 2010

At 9 o’clock, we had a briefing with Alain Hubert and the field guides. The weather is expected to be a bit cloudy, but without strong wind.

The plans for the following 2 weeks are the following: 19 January, Tuesday - Elie, Steve, Alain Trullemans, Sanne and Irina go to Brattnipane with a Prinoth.19 January - Zorigto, Josef and Rene will go to the Teltet nunatak to install the OTC, loggers, pancake traps and to carry out sampling20 January - Alain and Irina come back with a Prinoth21 January - Zorigto, Josef and Alain go to Ketelersbreen to install the OTC, loggers, pancake traps and to carry out sampling23 or 24 January - Alain goes to Brattnipane with a Prinoth to pick up Elie, Steve and Sanne26 January - Alain, Elie, Steve and Sanne come back from Brattnipane27 January - All BELDIVA/DELAQUA team goes to waypoint Ping01 with 2 field guides. Zorigto, Josef and Alain go to Pingvinane to collect data from the previously installed loggers and set it to a recording periodicity of 3 h so that they can record for one year. After that, we want to go to the remaining nunataks of Pingvinane that we have not yet visited. Elie, Steve and Sanne go to the lake (Northern Vikinghoda).28 January - Zorigto, Josef and Alain take a one day trip to Ketelersbreen and Teltet to collect the data from the already installed loggers and set them to a recording periodicity of 3h, so that they can record measures for 1 year. 29 January - final packing, arrival of a feeder flight from Novo30 January (Saturday) - flight to Novo. This maps shows you some of the places where we intend to go. Brattnipane is about 50 kms from the station and it is useful to go there with a Prinoth.

Of course, everything depends on the weather.

After that, we had a meeting with Johan Berte about the SSS (Southern Scientific Shelter) and the installation of a pump there. Our purpose is to install a pump to filter the air there, because this shelter is well situated. We would like to know which types of organisms can be found in the air, and whether they resemble the ones that we observe in our terrestrial samples. This afternoon, there will be a planning meeting and after, Johan will tell us when approximately we could start.

Irina Gorodetskaya gave us a plot of the meteodata from the ridge. It's very interesting and we can try to find a correlation between the surface temperatures (that we measured) and the meteorological conditions. Also, we'll do fluorescence measurements on the ridge and in an "oasis". For us, an ‘oasis’ is a spot that allows for the growth of algae, cyanobacteria, mosses, etc.After reading the data from the loggers installed on the ridge, we have chosen the periods where we should take measurements to have a complete daily cycle: between 7-9 h (night-day transition), 11-13 h (peak of incoming radiation, but rocks are still cold), 16-17 h (highest temperature of rock surfaces), 19-20 h (day-night transition), 21-23 h (night). Between these records, we'll continue to sample the cryoconites behind Utsteinen. And we shouldn't forget the installation of passive aerosol traps (pancake) on the ridge.

I think that the coming week will be very busy, and probably, I will not have much time for the blog before Sunday!Cheers, Zorigto

Welcome-Welkom-Bienvenue

Dear all,This blog is about our scientific research in the frame of 3 expeditions to the Princess Elisabeth Station, the new Belgian Research Station, in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The expeditions are financed by the Federal Science Policy Office for the project BELDIVA. The logistic support at the Station is ensured by the International Polar Foundation. Guides from the Belgian Army have also accompanied us during the field trips, as the photograph René Robert.In addition, in 2013, one of us has been invited to participate to a expedition by INACH (Chile).Who are we? Scientists, mostly from Belgian Universities and Institutions, and our international colleagues who are proposing their complementary expertises. We work together and a characteristics of the Antarctic research is its high level of international collaboration, as requested by the Antarctic Treaty (http://www.ats.aq/index_e.htm).Because our teams are multilingual, the blog will also contain texts in different languages (presently English, Dutch, French, and maybe more in the future...). It is possible to have translations with Google. Hopefully, you will enjoy our chronicles, and do not hesitate to write comments and questions!